Baby Blue Eyes

Chapter Eight

Putting my guitar down in the music block, next to Jamie’s bass, I find myself quivering with excitement for our first practice. Leaving my instrument in the school music room so I don’t have to lug it around all day, I make my way out of the room, to be met by Levi. The one and only.

His guitar strapped to his back, his hair rather ruffled (as ever), he smiles at me, flashing those pearly white teeth. My goodness he’s attractive.

‘Ready for the practice?’ he asks, enthusiastically.

I nod. ‘I can’t wait,’ I reply, truthfully. If we can recreate even half of the magic that there was when The Something Somethings made ten months ago, this lunch time will be utterly incredible.

‘Me too,’ he replies.

We stand there, awkwardly, looking at each other. Not ideal.

‘Uh, I’d better-’ I begin.

‘Yeah, you-’

‘See you later!’ I call, and head off to the common room, wincing at the awkward farewell. I’d been hoping that Levi and I could get over this awkwardness, but at the moment, it’s not looking particularly hopeful.

As I enter the common room, heads turn, and I find myself almost the centre of attention. Immediately flushing, I wonder if I’m having a bad hair day? Or is there an enormous spot covering half my face? I’m all panicky and paranoid, but I carry on walking as if nothing’s happening.

People are excitedly whispering, and as I make my way towards where Willow is sat, more and more of them join in. Clearly it’s a bit more than an enormous spot. Okay, so I’m either going mad and paranoid, or overnight I’ve become the subject of hot gossip.

‘Yeah… I heard Levi rejoined!’

‘Oh my god, really?’

‘Yes! Imogen… seriously pissed off… can’t blame her.’

Catching snippets of the gossip, it suddenly hits me. Levi.

The actions of one of the most popular boys in the school is bound to have stirred up bitchy gossip, and as I sink into a seat next to Willow, trying to forget the fact that they’re all staring at me, I hear my own name.

‘Zoey… trying to win him back?’

‘Wouldn’t put it past her.’

‘Yeah… how did she even… his girlfriend in the first place?’

The tone of this gossip is downright cruel! I bite my lower lip, rubbing my forehead. There’s not much more of this I can stand, as the harsh whispers continue all around me.

Willow looks at me sympathetically, while Tasha, whose just walked in, looks as if she’s about to hit someone.

‘You can’t let them get away with this, Zo!’ she tells me, clenching her fists.

I try to look apathetic. ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ I lie.

‘Of course it bothers you,’ Tasha retorts. ‘They’re bloody talking about you as if you’re a total slag!’

‘Do you want to leave?’ Willow asks, looking concerned.

‘She can’t just get up and leave!’ Tasha growls. ‘She needs to face it!’

‘But she can’t sit here and listen to it!’ Willow replies. ‘It’s horrible!’

‘Look, guys!’ I interrupt. ‘Arguing won’t do us any good. Lets just act like we don’t care, okay, and start up our own conversation.’

Tasha relaxes into her seat. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Want to hear about what Kieran and I got up to last night?’ she asks suddenly, with a devilish smile.

‘NO!’ Willow and I respond, in unison.

Tasha pouts. ‘Only trying to help!’

*

Lunch time takes a while in getting to us. The gossip seems to have spread all round school, and I’m met with scornful looks and whispers starting up whenever I enter a room. This is what you get for having a popular boy in your band.

In Spanish, Levi seems very aware of the stir that we’ve brought about, sitting in his chair uncomfortably. People don’t seem to understand that whispers are meant to be inaudible, and therefore Willow and I hear a tirade of Zoey-abuse from the girls behind us. Willow flinches each time on my behalf, bless her, but I steel myself and ignore it. After all, after a while, being called a boyfriend stealing slag so many times soon loses its impact.

I’ve got to say, I have no idea what I’ve done to render me a boyfriend stealing slag. I’m certainly not going to steal Levi from Imogen bloody Cooper, which gets rid of the boyfriend stealing thing, and it seems rather hypocritical that the less than innocent girls behind me are calling me a slag… so their insults don’t really count. Or so I tell myself.

When the lesson finally drags to an end, I head quickly out of the classroom, saying goodbye to Willow and then making my way up to the music room.

As I speedily stride away from the gossip and whispers, I suddenly feel a hand on my arm, and I spin around.

Levi. Who bloody else would it be?

‘You okay?’ he asks, looking a bit worried.

I shrug. ‘I’ve been better. You?’

‘I’ve heard the rumours and things,’ he continues, ignoring my question.

‘Yeah, I think the majority of the school have,’ I reply.

‘But I don’t believe you’re stealing Imi,’ he tells me.

Imi? Well, it’s not as endearing as songbird. Even though that was only on occasions. Not that it matters.

‘Good,’ I answer. ‘Because I’m not.’

Levi nods, somewhat awkwardly. ‘Shall we go and practice, then?’ he asks.

There’s nothing left for us to do but walk together up to the music room. Awkwardness is bound to ensue. Particularly as people are staring pointedly at us, and whispering. I swear my school is way too bitchy for it’s own good.

‘How’s Orla then?’ he asks, startling me.

‘Orla?’ I repeat. ‘Oh, she’s fine. She started school recently and she loves it.’

‘Does she now?’ Levi chuckles, holding open a door for me. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘Mmm, yes. I think the dinosaur stickers are her favourite part,’ I reply. ‘She’s been sticking them up in her room every day.’

‘She still likes dinosaurs, then?’ Levi asks, and I nod.

‘Likes them? She loves them! It’s dinosaur everything in her room,’ I tell him. ‘You wouldn’t think it, seeing as she’s such a cute little blonde haired girl.’

Levi laughs. ‘No, you’d expect her to prefer fairies, or something.’

We’ve reached the music block. I frown a little as I realise Levi and I just had a civil little conversation- he clearly brought up Orla because he knew that would get me to relax. This friendly conversation wasn’t something I was expecting at all.

Matt’s already there in the practice room, setting up his keyboard and putting round music stands with the music on them.

‘Hi,’ he greets us. ‘Ready?’

I nod, going to get my guitar. Levi unzips his own guitar case, reverently taking out his slightly battered old guitar, the one he’s had ever since he first started learning to play. Though it’s still working, I can see why he would want to be saving up for a new one; this one has several scratches and marks where it’s been lugged around to various gig locations, and the strings have definitely seen better days. His D string in particular has started to fray, the wire peeling off in places to reveal the nylon beneath.

My guitar is thankfully in better condition, thanks to my very padded case, and carefulness when it comes to carrying it around. I tune it up swiftly, giving it a quick strum to check that it’s all in order.

Jamie comes in, bringing Eddie with him, and for a moment, it’s all so familiar that we all just stand there grinning foolishly at each other. Then, Matt claps his hands together briskly.

‘Right, let’s get started. Shall we start with ‘Need You‘?’

Everyone murmurs their assent, as we shuffle through our folders, finding the right sheet of music.

Eddie does the count down, like he always does, banging his drumsticks once, twice, three times, then Levi and I start strumming, Jamie coming in on the bass, Eddie gently tapping the drums to keep us all in rhythm, Matt playing the riff that runs throughout the song. It’s such a magical sound that it immediately fills me up with a feeling of nostalgia; this sound used to be the basis of my life.

Then Eddie and Matt and I pause our music playing, and I start singing. This is all so familiar, as Levi strums the chords, all five of us glancing at each other, mutually agreeing how amazing this is.

As I reach the end of the verse, Levi comes in to harmonise with the final few lines.

‘To you, I’m just a flirtation, not a complication,
I’m not spinning round and round your mind…’

The music building up, and up, we reach the chorus and suddenly, I’m entirely lost.

It’s as if the whole split never happened, as if we’ve been playing this all this time. I let the music sweep through me, losing myself entirely in it, letting the rhythm match my heartbeat, becoming one with it. My fingers move of their own accord as I sing with every breath in my body, my voice and Levi‘s soaring together in perfect harmony. This is heaven.

Before I know it, I’m playing the ending chords, and it’s over. Taking a deep breath as the final notes die away, I look over at Levi, unable to help myself. It was something I always did at the end of a song; look at him. He looks just the same as he always did, breathless from the effort put in, but smiling delightedly, a smile which matches my own.

His eyes meet mine, and for a moment, it’s as if everything that happened ten months ago has been wiped away. As if the only thing that matters is looking at him, and having him look back at me. Then reality hits, and I snap out of it, looking over at Matt, Jamie and Eddie, who look equally as excited as us. Except Matt, of course, but he rarely looks excited about anything.

‘That,’ says Eddie, ‘was amazing.’

Jamie nods. ‘I mucked up in the bridge though, sorry about that.’

‘I didn’t notice,’ I reply. ‘I got a bit lost in it all.’

‘Hmm, yes, not exactly Miss Observant, are you, Zo?’ Eddie teases, pulling out his ear protectors.

I scowl at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Levi smiling, looking as if he’s about to add something, but then pause, and stop.

This becomes a theme of the rehearsal. While it’s not exactly awkward, it’s not quite right with Levi. He doesn’t say much, seeming to be hanging on to the fragile peace that we’ve created between us, and not wanting to push his luck too much. I feel kind of bad for this, and end up being extra chatty and bubbly to make up for it, hoping it isn’t blindingly obvious that I feel extremely awkward too.

So the rehearsal goes, thankfully, without a glitch. We practice the songs, and while we’re not perfect on some of them, we all seem to be remembering how to play them, and the tunes and lyrics so well that I wonder if I’m not the only one whose been rehearsing at home.

My enthusiasm did indeed lead me to spend some evenings humming the tunes along to my guitar playing, along with singing some of them in the shower and whistling it in the book shop. I even got out the half finished CD we started to make and played back some of tracks. It was a quickly done recording, but it captured how much passion and enthusiasm we were pouring into the band. We recorded it only a few days before the break up, and after that, we gave up on making the CD. Now that we’re back together, perhaps we can start up that project again?

When the rehearsal is over, we’re all fired up with our enthusiasm to do The Something Somethings properly this time, to not give up. Scheduling in a practice for two days later, I go out of the practice room buzzing. It’s just like old times, minus the flirting and arguing with Levi. Despite his careful approach to how he deals with me, however, I can’t help the feeling that we’re dangling on a very thin thread together, only inches away from another argument. It’s something I want to avoid at all costs, but I can’t help but think that it’s imminent, despite my best efforts. We’ll just have to wait and see.